More Articles

By Dan WhitcombREUTERS • Wednesday May 22, 2013 6:36 AM

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal appeals court yesterday struck down an Arizona law that bans abortions
after 20 weeks gestation, saying it violated “unalterably clear” U.S. Supreme Court rulings that
women have a right to terminate pregnancies until a fetus is viable.

The decision by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco,
which overturned the ruling of a U.S. district judge, was hailed by abortion-rights groups as a “
huge victory” in a state that they say has taken one of the nation’s toughest stances on the
issue.

“Last year, Arizona led the nation in the number of legislative attacks against women’s health
care,” Nancy Northrup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement.

“With today’s defeat in federal court, we call on the governor and legislature to stop wasting
Arizona taxpayers’ time and money on these cruel and extremely harmful efforts to chip away at
women’s constitutionally protected rights,” she said.

Gov. Jan Brewer, a Republican who signed the abortion ban into law in April 2012, did not
comment.Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery, who argued the case before the appellate court,
also had no comment.

Cathi Herrod, president of the anti-abortion Center for Arizona Policy, which supports the ban,
said the appellate court had “put a pro-abortion ideology before the health and safety of women and
pre-born children.”

“Ultimately, as we’ve anticipated from the beginning, this case should be decided by the U.S.
Supreme Court. Sadly, until that time, women and pre-born children will suffer the consequences of
this disappointing decision,” she said.

The Arizona law would prohibit physicians from carrying out abortions starting at 20 weeks of
pregnancy, except in medical emergencies, and could send doctors who perform them to jail.

Abortion-rights groups had said the law was more extreme than similar laws in other states
because the way Arizona measures gestation means it would bar abortions two weeks earlier than in
other states.

Those states also set the limit at 20 weeks but calculate gestation time differently. Arizona
already bans abortions at the point when a fetus might survive outside the womb, generally at 23 to
24 weeks.